


bayonet beckoning

by belovedmuerto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Insanity, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, and darkness, did I mention the angst?, general awfulness, possible triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:28:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock comes home, but all his pieces are missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bayonet beckoning

**Author's Note:**

> Oh jeez. OK. This. It's probably the darkest thing I've ever written. And there's some things in here that might be squicky or triggery, imagery-wise. Mentions of violence and lots of murder, what could possibly be construed as suicidal thoughts, consent issues that I think fall under "dubious," and probably some other stuff that I'm not sure how to explain. Oh, and insanity. Full on freaking insanity.
> 
> Um, enjoy the fruits of my anxiety rearing its head again?
> 
> As always, beta done by castiron. title is from "Bloodshed in the Woodshed" by the Moulettes, to whom you should go listen IMMEDIATELY.

It’s easy, becoming an abstract, abandoning all that is weakness, all that makes him vulnerable, makes him Sherlock Holmes. He tries on concepts, but none of them fit quite right. Justice is too bright, too tight. It makes him itch beneath his skin, in his bones, _proximal, middle, distal, phalanges, metacarpals, radius, ulna stopstopstop_ , itch radiating like nerve clusters. Vengeance wishes for a gun but **no**. No gun. He’s not a good enough shot, and it’ll never be the right gun, that gun fits someone else’s hand. 

Revenge almost fits. Either way, it comes on strong like cheap vodka and he doesn’t take it off. 

None of them are _right_. None of them are what he wants to wear, what he longs for. He can’t wear that--it’s not a concept. He can’t crawl inside another person and wear _self_ , wear _John_ , like John is his own skin. He can’t graft his skin, what’s left of it, onto another person and say, yes, this, us, we are one. He can’t fuse their bones together, doubling their strength, _the femur is the strongest bone in the body and can withstand nearly a ton of force in some ways but take a sledgehammer to it and you’ll still shatter it, he did that once that’s definitely not good, shatters like glass like a heart, screams, screams echo in the night._

Even if he could, he-who-was-Sherlock but wears revenge now as his own skin (does he have a name anymore? He doesn’t remember, he doesn’t care), would HE want that? To embody the concept of we, us, _SherlockJohnJohnSherlock_ all one entity?

_Bit not good?_

_No, Sherlock, definitely not good._

_Who’s Sherlock?_

So he fits revenge around him, wears it like his coat, his suit, his shield and armor, plate and maille, like his own skin his connective tissue’s armor and shield. He fits revenge into the raw places where Sherlock isn’t anymore, the bits of himself he left behind on a sidewalk, in a concussed doctor, in a flat near Marylebone. Fits it to him and slithers around Europe, around the world, sticking knives and dirtier things into people, and leaves little bits of what’s left of himself shoved into puncture wounds, lashed around necks in ligature marks, seeping out of broken skin and bloodshot eyes and bashed in heads and crumpled bodies.

The skin he wears, _revenge_ , grows more comfortable, the more of himself he leaves behind. Little jagged pieces of Sherlock; he throws himself away, he doesn’t need it anymore he’s dead why does that make him giggle, John would tell him not to giggle, it’s a crime scene, and it _is_ a crime scene but he’s the one that put the body there.

Sally was right after all. But not totally right, she’s no better at it than he is, he always misses something. Always misses. Always misses _John_. John.

It’s easy to let anyone who wants him have him. Use his body, discard it, in seedy hotels and dank alleys and once in the room next to the corpse he’d just garroted. What does he need with it anymore? It’s only a body, and only pieces of one at that. Skin gone, peeling and flaking away, bones raw and peeking through at joints, shining white against the grey pallor that wearing revenge leaves on his complexion.

It’s easy.

It’s easy.

It’s easy.

It’s easy.

Man or woman, old or young, rough or gentle, however they want him they have him. Always tall. Never blond. None of them ever say anything when he squeezes his eyes shut, when he sobs, when the name he cries is never, ever the one they gave him.

Some of them seem to understand, which is patently absurd because he certainly doesn’t understand, not any of it, not what he’s doing or why, only who he’s doing it for. Those he treats cruelly, without remorse. _Sociopath, there it is, see it now?_ Revenge is most comfortable then, when he takes revenge on his own fractured emotions.

His skin is raw. His brain is raw.

His task is done.

It’s not so easy, filtering through the sheers in Baker Street, back into the lounge, among the dust motes in the air, back to where He is, to where the flat that was there that was theirs is just the same yet entirely different. 

It’s not so easy.

Not so easy.

Not so easy.

It smells different.

He nearly runs.

He’s wondering if sunlight always felt so painful against his skin, like pins and needles and pricking, pinching things in the night only it’s the afternoon, when he hears John speak. 

“Oh. Hello.”

He doesn’t open his eyes. He waits. Waits. Waits. Waits. For the blow that never comes, for the reaction, for the yelling. For anything more than the sound of John’s quiet breathing behind him, the footsteps, John’s quiet breathing in front of him, deep, even, tidal.

_Why?_

“Tea?” 

John sounds ever-so-perfectly John; he asks the same question he always asks, _do you want tea Sherlock are you listening to me Sherlock will you please eat something Sherlock who the fuck is_ Sherlock _anyway?_

He drinks the tea pressed upon him, revenge makes it taste funny. Did Sherlock always take his tea this way? This perfect and ordinary?

John is looking at him with concern. He doesn’t want concern.

He wants pain. He wants revenge. 

Revenge is gone.

His empty corpse is left behind, only it doesn’t know it’s a corpse, it thinks it still breathes and lives and isn’t that ridiculous, it died just over a year ago, it committed suicide and made its best friend watch, made the love of his life, who should’ve known even though it had never said the words, _watch_. 

Clearly there was a reason revenge fit the best, even when he was still Sherlock he wore it and used it and killed the only good thing he’d ever had with it.

“Why aren’t you reacting? Why don’t you shout you should shout you should hit me you should throttle me. You thought I was dead I committed suicide in front of you I made you watch he made you watch we made you watch John--how? Why?” The words spill out of him in a torrent, a flood of confusion. His voice is hoarse from disuse; he’d only ever spoken when he was killing someone or extracting information or sobbing John’s name in the middle of anonymous sex with anonymous strangers in awful smelly little hotel rooms and flats in the worst parts of the worst cities in the farthest corners of the world.

_Some of them gave me money, John. I didn’t even care I used it to buy more weapons never food._

_Never drugs. I did that for you. But god how I wanted to._

John replies in a gentle tone, with a gentle look on his face and heartbreak in his eyes good fine now you know how we feel how we’ve felt how stupid we were for doing this to ourself myself me me I _shit_.

“I did think you were dead,” John says, eyes downcast, frowning. John is sad for me, worried for me he shouldn’t be I’m beyond repair. “For a while.”

John looks up, there’s a wry smile twisting his mouth. John has a gentle voice, he has gentle skin. He wants to wear John. Wants to crawl inside where it’s safe and warm and where he isn’t evil and awful, wants to stay there until his sympathetic nervous system is _John_ , until his heart is mine and it doesn’t matter anymore that mine is gone. Not even burnt, no not burnt like he said it would be but broken off piece by piece and left scattered around the world, grotesque calling cards given to all of _them_.

“Mycroft told me,” John continues. “He said--” And here John stops. He stops and he gets up and he goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle back on and then he goes to the cupboard and he gets out a bottle of whiskey that never used to be there and he pours whiskey into both mugs when he makes the tea and he brings them back and hands one to notSherlock and both their hands shake, one holding the mug one taking it from the other.

“He said that there was something wrong.”

_Oh. He means me. Of course. I am wrong._

_He said come home Sherlock and I said who’s Sherlock and I threw away the phone._

_He said break with reality and I said I don’t care it’s better this way take care of him for me, for him for Sherlock because he can’t anymore._

_I’m not even_ Sherlock _anymore and I can figure that out that something is wrong. And of course Mycroft knew, when he’d changed his suit, slipped his skin, when he’d left enough pieces of Sherlock behind, bled out on floors and shoved into closets and making the most awful messes at times. Mycroft is_ omniscient.

John is speaking again. “When I was angry with you, and wanted to hit you, you weren’t here for me to hit. It’s okay now, I do actually understand. I don’t like it, I think you’re a dick, but I do understand, and I’ve forgiven you.” John gulps his whiskey-laced tea, stares at his knees.

“Please.” It falls from his lips like a stone, plonks into the room and drops to the floor, splatters messily.

“What?”

“John, please. Hit me.”

“Sherlock I’m not going to hit you.”

“Please. John, please. I--I--you need to react, I need you to react, to do something I need it, I need you to make me feel--this.” He doesn’t say he needs to be made to feel _anything_ , to see if he can still feel any of Sherlock, if any of the pieces he left behind here might still be alive, still be part of him.

John looks hard at him, assessing, coming to his conclusions. Then he punches Sherlock in the face.

He goes toppling off the coffee table he’d been sat on.

_Nothing._

_Fuck._

John crouches over him with a goofy grin on his face. “Okay, yeah, that does help. Welcome home, you wanker.” 

John pulls him to his feet and wraps him in a tight hug, then pulls back and plants a kiss on his cheek. “Now go take a shower, you smell awful.”

It is a chaste kiss, soft, but it sets his skin aflame, a little spot of burning all through the shower. He uses all the hot water, washes his hair twice. It doesn’t help to warm him, doesn’t make him feel clean, only barely muffles the sound of his sobs.

\----

John finds him, of course, no matter how quiet he tries to be. 

Backed into a corner, pressed hard into the wall next to the sofa behind a pile of books, where no one can get behind him no one can sneak up on him only John manages to do so anyway he’s lucky he discarded all his weapons before he’d finished filtering through the windows like dust, like sunlight (pricking pinching he can feel it along his skin even in the corner even in the middle of the night just waiting to get him and pinch along his skin some more).

His screams were too loud, or his sobs, he’s not sure which he was doing this time but his throat hurts and that’s really not a good indicator towards one or the other and he woke John. He doesn’t like the dark, the room is too big, the flat is too big the _world_ is too big someone is going to come for him he can’t stay here stay still stay put of course he can he’s finished, remember? Remember?

But John doesn’t come from upstairs. John comes from Sherlock’s room. John sleeps in Sherlock’s room on Sherlock’s bed on Sherlock’s sheets and he can’t parse what that means and it frustrates him because he should know what it means he always knows what it means when John does something anything really; ordinary John that’s why Sherlock fell in love with him, too bad he can’t feel Sherlock anymore, Sherlock’s gone, discarded along the way used as fucking calling cards.

He’s murmuring when John crouches in front of him, he can’t stop the words falling from his mouth out of his brain like blood except he doesn’t have anymore of that left to bleed so for once it’s just words just, “All the pieces are gone why are they gone are they all gone where did I leave them Humpty Dumpty except none of the king’s horses or men are coming to put me back together because I’m expendable we’re all expendable except you,” he looks up at John, who is now sitting quietly in front of him, watching him, arms crossed and legs crossed, frowning frowning frowning at him. 

But John doesn’t try to stop him doesn’t try to shush him, just sits and listens while his eyes fill up with tears that don’t fall and Sherlock’s vision goes blurry with the tears that are still falling and ah, it must have been the sobbing that woke John up.

He’d been told numerous times by numerous anonymous people that it’s awfully hard to crash out next to a sobbing man, he should really go if he’s going to do that.

“I think there might be a piece left, maybe two will you help me find them John? John John John you’re the only thing that kept me John, I’m not even me anymore but I know who me is, or who he was, I’m not sure which but it was you, the only thing that kept me from dissipating entirely from washing away down the bathtub and no longer being a being was you.”

Eventually his voice cracks and dies, like the rest of him did once upon a time, and he falls silent, watching John watch him.

John gets to his feet and pulls him up. Holds his hand and leads him through the kitchen and into Sherlock’s room. Tucks him into bed; his bed, his sheets, John’s smell it’s mesmerizing and awful and wonderful all at the same time how do people stand these things this mingling and he turns his face into the pillow and inhales deep, deeper until he can’t inhale anymore and then John is there next to him, facing him and he whimpers.

John looks so sad. He shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see it. He feels a soft breath across his cheek, and one of John’s hands creeps across his neck and into his hair, the other rests against his chest, mooring lines tying him to reality, keeping him from scattering into a million pieces along with the pieces of Sherlock he’d left behind.

He squeezes his eyes shut, scoots closer, closer, so close, their noses bump together and he feels the barest outline of John’s lips against his own--or perhaps those belong to Sherlock?--and John jerks back a little.

“Sherlock, no, not like--”

“Please?” he whispers.

“We shouldn’t.”

“Put me back together. It has to be you, please.”

He keeps his eyes shut. He hears John sigh, that sigh that always means he’ll get what he wants, what he needs, because that’s how John is, selfless, at least when it came to Sherlock.

John takes his hand, rubs his thumb gently across the palm of Sherlock’s hand, and he shudders. It’s a simple gesture, and simultaneously the most intimate thing he’s ever felt; his breath shortens.

He doesn’t speak, he only waits. John’s touch moves to his wrist and back again, and he can’t breathe through it.

“Sherlock,” John says.

He cuts him off, speaking too fast, too much, the words fall from his lips again, spit like bullets. “Please please I’m awful I’m evil I can’t feel I’m him don’t you see? I’m Him. And Sherlock’s all gone all used up I left little bits of him all over the place in all those people like a calling card--”

“You what?!” John’s fingers in his hair tighten, around his wrist clench, and he presses their foreheads together.

“A calling card, John, so they’d all know each other in hell, don’t you see? So they can recognize each other that they’re all mine because they were all His and he’ll rule them all and when I’m a real corpse instead of just a walking one--”

“Christ Sherlock don’t talk like that--”

“I’ll be there too, why don’t you see? I left too much of him, of Sherlock with them and there’s not enough to put him back together again, cracked like an egg, all the kings horses and no one really cares and not even you John so luminous it hurts to look at you can put Sherlock back together just do it just get it over with please please--too many pieces gone gone gone not enough left. Too many bones gone, too much blood lost I’m raw, John, so raw. I hurt so much.”

His voice cracks and fails again, and John kisses him. Rough, hard, bruising, fingers clenching in his hair, pulling, so much emotion, John has enough emotion for both of them, and it’s pure and clean and tastes warm and sweet and wonderful against his tongue.

John peels his clothes off, peels his skin off, flays him alive with soft hands, gentle skin and it’s soothing to give up give in hold him tight beg, plead with long fingers and short gasps; John’s kisses go tender and gentle with his touch, and everywhere he touches, Sherlock bursts into flame, turns molten, until there’s nothing left, no skin, not even ashes nothing to hold him together. John takes his own clothes off and presses their bodies together, yes, god yes, please, he’s not sure if he says it aloud or just thinks it, but even so he thinks John hears him because John moves, rocks against him, presses kisses into every square inch of his raw, broken shell of a body.

His eyes fall shut, and John says, “No. Look at me, Sherlock. Don’t shut your eyes,” in panting breaths, and he can’t help but obey.

Tears fall from his eyes, blurring his vision of John, but he doesn’t shut them again, he doesn’t sob like he used to. John wipes the tears away with gentle fingers, kisses them away with his lips, kisses and kisses and kisses him.

John says missed, but not in accusation. He cards his fingers through Sherlock’s hair--is it Sherlock’s hair again?--and says love. He moves their bodies together, his touch rough and gentle at the same time, and says great idiot, but it’s with a smile and it means amazing and brilliant and love.

Sherlock only says John, but it means missed, and it means love, and it means please and thank you and I did this all for you and please don’t ever leave me don’t ever stop touching me don’t ever don’t ever and John nods and says, “I won’t.”

They move, and move, and move, and kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and Sherlock comes apart at the seams, and John falls into all the cracks, fills them up and brings the pieces back all at once and starts to cement him back together again.


End file.
